Although some mechanisms, such as credit cards and debit cards, are acceptable payment forms, cash is still sometimes a necessary form of payment in everyday life. For example, some merchants operating small businesses may not yet have the infrastructure (e.g., equipment and relationships with credit card processing institutions) for accepting credit cards due to the perceived associated costs (e.g., transaction fees, system setup, etc.) and/or the required resources (e.g., network access for electronic payment processing). Furthermore, some transactions involving small payment amounts (e.g., tipping, food truck transactions, or “IOU's” between friends) may be better facilitated with cash in the absence of alternatives. Moreover, some individuals, and even some merchants, may simply prefer to conduct transactions with cash rather than credit or debit cards.
Conventional solutions exist to alleviate the problem, but they often come with a considerable amount of restrictions. One solution, for example, is an automated teller machine (ATM). The ATM, however, often charges a transaction fee with every cash withdrawal if the user is not an account holder at the financial institution associated with the ATM. Furthermore, ATMs commonly require insertion of a physical card issued by a financial institution in order to dispense the cash, thereby requiring the individual to carry around that card, which may inconveniently contribute to a bulky wallet. Another existing solution is “cashback” in purchases. However, cashback often requires the individual to actually make a purchase at a merchant's place of business in order to obtain the cash.